The Big Four can't get it done here

Hays talks about the big four in The Players Championship in his weekly online commentary, 'Huddle up with Hays'.

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The elite of the elite.

Surely, these players will be in the hunt for The Players Championship come Sunday's final round. Right?

Well, no.

Not really.

The Stadium Course has dominated golf's Big Four, turning them into the Big Flop.

Tiger, Ernie, Phil and Vijay may win majors, but success is much harder for them to come by at Sawgrass.

The Players Championship is a major-tournament setting, but the game's greatest players usually don't find themselves in serious contention.

Recently, The Players has been more of a Cinderella story (insert Bill Murray impression here) with unknown Craig Perks winning in 2002 and the up-and-coming Adam Scott maturing quickly to win last year.

This tournament needs better buzz on Sunday than Stephen Ames in the final pairing with Kevin Sutherland.

Yawn.

It's time for one of golf's greatest players to take home one of golf's greatest championships -- and beat the other three in dramatic fashion.

Woods, Els, Singh and Mickelson have made a combined 42 career starts at The Players.

In those 42 starts, only one has resulted in a victory (Woods in 2001).

The four players have combined for eight Top 10 finishes, but have also missed eight cuts.

That's not exactly tearing it up.

Maybe The Players' greatest argument in officially becoming golf's fifth major is the fact that the game's best are routinely swatted away at Sawgrass.

The big four have won 107 times on the PGA Tour and have captured 15 major championships.

So why can't they breakthrough consistently in Ponte Vedra Beach?

After Tiger rallied past Phil in epic fashion at the final round of the Ford Championship at Doral three weeks ago, local golf fans began to salivate at the chance of a showdown of that magnitude this week.

There are no excuses this year.

Singh has already won once on Tour this season and could easily be coming in to The Players on a two-tournament win streak if not for a couple bad shots.

Els has won two international tournaments this year in the Dubai Desert Classic and Qatar Masters.

Mickelson captured two Tour wins in February.

Tiger is Tiger.

The Big Four are all playing at a very high level.

There is no indication that they won't play well this week.

An incredible spectacle among the game's greatest players is certainly a possibility, but the harsh reality is that it probably won't happen.

The numbers say that these four players struggle here.

Fans will be more likely to see a Sunday battle between Padraig Harrington, Kenny Perry, Paul Casey and Bob Burns.

Those four players finished in the Top 10 here last year.

Vijay vs. Tiger.

Phil vs. Ernie.

Matchups to dream about for the final two pairings.

Matchups that are likely to remain a dream by the back nine on Sunday.

The Big Four may own the game of golf right now, but The Players Championship owns them.